


Three Can Keep A Secret

by thp_cara (TheHolosexualPan)



Category: Hermitcraft RPF
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Blood, Blood and Injury, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Ghost Shenanigans, Haunted Houses, Horror, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Mystery, Polyamory, horror-typical elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:55:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 10,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23514256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheHolosexualPan/pseuds/thp_cara
Summary: Three lovers are at the mercy of what seems to be a series of freakish coincidences. However, things turn sour when one is separated from the other two.OrGrian, Mumbo and Iskall go on a road trip, but their car starts acting up and they end up spending the night at an old, desolate house in the middle of nowhere.
Relationships: Grian/Mumbo Jumbo/Iskall85
Comments: 76
Kudos: 130





	1. Lost

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write some horror and choose the OT3 to experiment on.  
> \ (•◡•) /

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But then their car had started acting weird and it was then that Grian had started thinking that, maybe, just maybe, something wasn’t quite right.

“Guess I’m never trusting weather forecasts again.”

There’s a sigh on his right and he can imagine Iskall rolling his eyes at him. Grian looks at him and, though the muted, cold light of the storm that had been going on for hours already turn his face more austere than it usually is, he can still see the hint of a smile at the corner of his lips.

“ _ Sunny, with a bit of wind _ , they said, _ make sure to drink enough water _ , they said”, his tone is a mocking, high-pitched and, in Grian’s opinion, completely accurate imitation of the weather presenter, “I could get a better prediction from my grandmother,  _ I swear _ !” 

“Now, that’s a bit unfair, Grian”, Mumbo chimes from the backseat, “Just because it was wrong once… Well. And also, how would you  _ grandmother _ of all people be able to tell the weather better than the people paid to research it? That’s a bit silly, if you ask me.”

Grian just crosses his arms across his chest and speaks with an almost theatrical sort indignity: 

“So what if they’re paid? You’ve never seen how she reads tea leaves! The woman is a psychic, I tell you!”

Grian waits for a few seconds, and then, slightly mumbled under his breath, adds, “And she has arthritis.”

Mumbo laughs and Grian turns to look at him, a wide grin betraying the seriousness of his demeanour. Iskall just sighs louder and shakes his head, one hand gesturing at the two of them, as if to say,  _ gosh, look at these two fools, _ while the other remains on the steering wheel in a relaxed grip. Grian doesn’t blame him, though he knows that Iskall, also, is mostly playing, seeing as he and Mumbo had started complaining about the weather and, truthfully, anything under the sun the moment they all came to conclusion that this storm wouldn’t be going away any time soon and that they’d have to reschedule their hiking trip and go back home. Well, mostly Grian was the one doing the complaining, to be fair, but that’s details.

They all had looked forward to this trip, too…

Oh, well.

“How much longer, Iskaaaaaall”, Grian whines as soon as silence settles in the car again, only interrupted by the ambient pitter-patter of the rain.

“Two hours until the next town, maybe five in total. We  _ did _ drive out pretty far, huh...”

Grian deflates visibly and Iskall pats him on the head, ruffling the dark blonde looks, which makes Grian giggle a little.

Mumbo sticks his head between the two front seats and squints at the windscreen.

“It’s quite dark for”, Grian sees him glance at his fancy clock, which, apparently, he didn’t take off for their trip, “Three o’clock”. Well, Mumbo  _ did _ wear a suit on almost all occasions, so Grian isn’t that surprised, though the black turtleneck and grey hiking pants are a pleasant change of scenery, so to speak.  _ You almost like not a lawyer, _ Iskall had said when they first saw him, Grian recalls, a small smile curling on his lips.

“It’s just the storm clouds”, Iskall says, swerving on a curve smoothly.

“Yes, but it looks, well, it really almost looks pitch-black, already”, with the tone he uses, Grian figures that Mumbo must be worried for Iskall’s prosthetic eye. He never did do well in the dark ever since getting it, Iskall’s always told them.

But the headlights are quite strong, and, if worse comes to worst, Grian can drive too, albeit, not as well. He doesn’t particularly like driving either, for some reason. 

“It’s fine, Mumby~”, Grian teases and he looks back at Mumbo as he places his head in his hands, but even so, Grian can still see how red the tips of his ears are.

“I hate that nickname”, his words are smothered by his fingers but Grian just grins.

“You  _ love _ it.”

Iskall lets out a puff of air that sounds suspiciously close to laughter at their antics and Grian relaxes. Well, maybe today didn’t go as planned, but at least he’s still spending time with his boyfriends, which is all that matters.

* * *

The first sign that something was wrong should have alarmed him more, Grian thinks, but then again, it’s not unusual to lose signal in the mountainous area, especially seeing as they were going through a thick patch of trees, their branches spreading against the sky like dark streaks of ink, barely darker than the sky itself. Still, the fact that, one second, he was happily chatting with Stress with pretty good signal strength and then it suddenly went to zero, out of nowhere,  _ that _ might have been something to keep in mind at least, but at the time, it just seemed something that he could easily brush off as a weird little glitch and nothing more.

The second sign that things weren’t  _ normal _ was the fact that they could see no signs on the side of the road. Grian hadn’t paid that much attention when their first came this way, but it was just odd that there were no markings or anything. It made Iskall check his map, but it  _ seemed  _ like they were still on the correct path. Iskall said he recognised the road, the way it curved around a dangerous looking cliff face, they way it ran along a river for a few miles, they way it had a few hills one right after the other, three such hills, to be more precise, not steep enough to build a raised road between them, so Grian thought that, maybe it just really had gotten that dark, that maybe, with the headlights only really contouring the asphalt itself, they were all just too tired to really take in their surroundings. Maybe the way here had been just as sign-less, but they hadn’t noticed, that’s all.

The third sign was the fact that they had gone for three hours and not seen any settlement, not even a single house, of which there were many, what with the fields being used as pastures and farmlands by the people living nearby. Iskall had said they should reach the next  _ town  _ in two hours _ ,  _ but as it stood, they seemed to have really gotten lost, which Iskall kept saying made no sense, as they hadn’t even reached any crossroad, other than the occasional dirt path, to take wrong turn at.

And still, all these things, at the moment, seemed to have plausible explanations, Grian muses, in retrospect. Weak and fluctuating telephone signal strength in the mountains. A lack of attention. A case of getting lost during a storm. Even now, it’s not, or rather, it doesn’t  _ seem _ like something worrying.

But then their car had started acting weird and it was then that Grian had started thinking that, maybe, just maybe, something wasn’t quite right.


	2. Doors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grian’s heart lodges itself in his throat at just how _abandoned_ the place looks.

Mumbo’s fast asleep and Grian is well on his way to falling into slumber as well when it happens. It’s not his fault, Iskall drives so nicely, it’s like floating on water, a feeling that, given enough time, provokes drowsiness like nothing else.

And then, he turns left so suddenly that Grian’s head almost slams into the glass of his window. He hears Mumbo fall on the floor of the car with a very pained and confused sounding grunt. Grian turns to Iskall, who has seemingly deemed it the right time to park on the side of the road without any preamble, but what Grian sees is his boyfriend looking very much shocked himself. Grian swallows and tries to calm his racing heart.

“Why did we stop… Here?”, as he says this, Grian tries to look around for some sort of contextual clues, but it is too dark at this point to discern anything, especially with the rain rendering them blind outside of a worryingly small radius. Iskall opens his mouth, frowns at the steering wheel, and then closes it again.

Mumbo gets up and looks between them, then at the car board, rubbing a sore spot on his neck.

“Something wrong with the car?”, and that makes sense, Grian thinks. Mumbo places a hand on Iskall’s arm and he looks at them, then.

“The wheel, it… It got too  _ easy _ to steer, suddenly”, and as if to demonstrate, he budges the gear lever and drives them a few more feet, turning the wheel to the right just a bit, what would normally be enough for a very small movement, but it lurches forward and to the right. Grian grabs his own seat, while Mumbo stumbles back into the backseat.

“I could drive us like this, but with the rain… It’s not very safe”, Iskall says, slowly, very slowly moving the car back where he first stopped it, “And with no signal, we could wait for other cars, but the weather… Yeah. I don't think there will be any other people until the storm clears.”

Grian hums and looks at his lap, eyebrows pinched together, worrying his lower lip between his teeth.

“We could spend the night in the car”, Mumbo offers, a hand on each of his boyfriends’ shoulders, trying to be comforting, but his smile is a bit too wide, clearly Mumbo feeling a bit shaken up still.

But Grian’s worry is starting to shift into something else as the sound of the rain falling and nothing else latches itself on him. He looks around them again, trying as best as he can to make sense of their surroundings. His eyes widen.

“Or we could go there. Maybe they have a landline.”

Both Iskall and Mumbo look at him with a hint of uncertainty, looking up as well.

Just in the distance, on the left side of the road, there’s a dim orange square. It’s hardly visible through the curtain of water droplets and the oppressive darkness, but is obviously a window.

“What if we bother them?”, Mumbo asks, immediately.

“And I don’t really fancy asking for help from strangers. Gut feeling”, Iskall follows suit.

Grian just waves them off and pulls a jacket over his red sweater, opening the car door and hopping out into the cold shower. He regrets this almost immediately, as it seems it takes less than a second to get him soaked to the bone, but there’s no going back now. He starts running towards what he can vaguely identify as a house, barely catching the sounds of his boyfriends yelling after him.

The house, as much as he can make it out, is quite old, a wooden structure with vines climbing up it’s side and a roof that looks like it’s a breeze away from caving in on itself, its curvature too abrupt for his liking, but nonetheless, Grian treks through the mud as quickly as he can and when he reaches the door, Mumbo and Iskall have caught up to him, the first giving him a resigned smile and the latter glancing at the house nestled between vegetation and thick, dark trees with a small scowl pinching at his features.

Grian shakes himself a little, his wet hair plastered over his forehead uncomfortably, but it only takes another steady breath and then he is knocking on the old wood. The only light is the muted glow of the window which is situated at the second floor of the house, just above the door. The three little knocks sound almost deafening, disturbing the rhythm of the raindrops and the whooshing cold wind that Grian only now realises is making his teeth clatter.

They wait for a minute, but it seems like a lifetime, and the smile Grian had tried to force onto his own face starts to falter. He looks up at Mumbo and Iskall, just a few steps behind him. There’s not even a porch to shield them, and Grian starts feeling stupider by the second.

“But… The light...”, even to his own ears, Grian sound defeated. He looks down at his soaked boots.

“Maybe they left it on accidentally and left”, Mumbo says and he and Iskall grab both his hands. Grian sighs as they pull him away back to the car, but risks one more glance at the old house, at the window.

The light is off.

His whole body stops in its tracks, which draws a concerned look from Mumbo, but Iskall, probably already guessing what happened by the way Grian is looking up, eyes wide and shoulders starting to shake, not from the cold, this time, looks up as well. Mumbo follows his lead.

Grian is still trying to figure out how to draw in a breath, because he is just staring at the now dark window, barely visible in the almost complete darkness when Iskall says:

“That doesn't look safe...”

It sounds like an observation and nothing more, but Mumbo pulls the two of them back towards the door. 

“A short-circuit, maybe?", he asks, trying to put some fake cheer into his own voice and Grian thinks, belatedly, that he should have maybe tried to stop them. Iskall seems cautious, but not enough to stop them from returning, but at the time, the idea of being out of the rain and the possibility of getting home quicker trump the sudden fear that has left Grian’s body just a bit number than before. He's not quite sure what they're talking about, but they don't seem to think that the light going off is anything more than curious.

When Mumbo raises his knuckles to the old wood, he barely touches them to the hard surface, and the door creaks open. Grian remembers, almost begrudgingly, that he always knocks on the frame, rather than the door itself, and that might be why it didn't open when  _ he _ knocked. It still makes his blood run cold, though.

It’s a slow movement, like the one caused by a window being open and a draft pushing the doors open or closed, but none of them move. They just stare at the small crack between door and frame.

He exchanges a look with Iskall, but he cannot seem to get his fear across well enough because Iskall, bless him, had decided that he had to take their backpacks with them and is now rummaging through his own, getting out a flashlight, which will definitely be useful, because the inside of the house is completely dark, as far as he can see.

Dry, but dark.

Mumbo shakes himself from his shocked daze and lets Iskall step in front of him, clicking the flashlight on.

Grian’s heart lodges itself in his throat at just how  _ abandoned _ the place looks. There is no furniture in the hallway they step in, wet boots leaving a puddle at the front door, only the dusty floor and peeling wallpaper, revealing the wooden structure behind it. A staircase lead to the second floor to their left, but the hallway goes on further and reveals two doors, cracked open also. It's an eerie sight.

Mumbo closes the door behind them, softly, carefully.

“Maybe we should… We should head back, guys”, Grian whispers into the stuffy air when they all hold hands again, "I don't have a good feeling about this…". 

Iskall shines the light onto the two doors and Grian shivers where he stands.

“Let’s just see if they have a landline. It doesn’t seem like there’s anyone here”, and Grian knows that Iskall is good at analysing his surroundings, knows that he and Mumbo have developed a game in which they try to scare Iskall and none of them have ever done it because he always  _ expects _ it, so he’s probably right, but-

“The window could be a fluke”, Mumbo speaks for him, probably picking up on the fact that Grian is a bit too spooked to speak all too clearly right now.

“If the circuit has been left on, it could just keep turning itself off and then, when it’s cool enough, blinking back on, but what this means for us is that this house has electricity”, Iskall explains and the logical explanations settles some of his nerves.

They trudge towards the two doors, the flashlight illuminating the way.


	3. Broken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A chill runs down Grian’s spine as he turns his back to the mirror completely and suddenly, they’re back in the bare hallway, face to face with the second door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok, maybe a bit more than five chapters, but still a short work!

The first door leads to an old, decrepit bathroom. The tiles on the walls, those that are still there, are cracked and, as it seems the rest of the house is, covered in a thick layer of dust, speaking of prolonged neglect. There’s a small window in the corner and the wind whooshes right through it, accentuating the chill of the room. Grian shivers and Mumbo runs his thumb over his knuckles reassuringly.

“This is some creepy stuff...”, Iskall mutters, flashing his light onto the bathtub, which lays overturned in a corner, the grime making Mumbo choke beside him.

“And you only realise that now?”, Grian tries to go for a teasing tone, but it falls flat as his pitch seems to rise higher and higher with every word he speaks. Then Iskall lets go of his hand and approaches the tub. Grian exchanges a look with Mumbo, who just shakes his head with a sigh.

Iskall turns to them, face betraying nothing, and looks at the rest of the bathroom. There’s a hole covered with wooden planks where the toilet might have been and, as disgusting as that might be, the reaction it provokes in Grian’s mind is _nothing_ compared to what he feels when he eyes the sink. It’s a bowl of darkened enamel, _cleaved_ _in half_ , and Grian, he isn’t an expert in vintage bathroom furniture, but he remembers that, when they were working on their own apartment, they had to make a choice between steel and enamel for their kitchen sink and he can recall how a store clerk had told them that while, yes, enamel is quite durable, it _cracks_. It doesn’t just break, not like the one he’s looking at right now. Grian can’t help but feel like it’s a sign, on omen of sorts.

“Grian? You alright there, dude?”, Iskall shakes his shoulder lightly, but Grian keeps looking at the sink.

Grian tries to reason with himself, ignoring the looks Iskall and Mumbo are sending his way at his shocked silence. This is an old house, he tells himself, who knows how many storms and natural phenomenons it’s faced, how many wild animals might have come inside and knocked some things over.There most certainly must be an explanation for the broken sink, even if the oddly straight break down its middle seems a bit  _ too _ precise. 

“I’m… Fine. This place is giving me the chills, that’s all”, he smiles at his boyfriends and Iskall shrugs, but he still looks worried, if a bit contemplative. Mumbo grabs Iskall’s and Grian’s hands and Iskall goes willingly, shining his flashlight around the old bathroom one more time. Grian only stalls for a second, looking back and catching a glimpse of his reflection in the dusty mirror above the broken sink. He squints at it as the three of them leave the room. Something’s doesn’t seem quite right and, usually, Grian would be all for investigating, his own strand of dastardly curiosity often leading him into a lot of trouble, but the quicker they explore the house and Iskall finds what they’re looking for, the quicker they can leave this house. In other words, Grian’s too afraid to look at the mirror too closely, mind still reeling from the sink.

A chill runs down Grian’s spine as he turns his back to the mirror completely and suddenly, they’re back in the bare hallway, face to face with the second door.

Iskall’s hand goes to the knob to push the old, wooden door open, but before he has a chance to turn it, Mumbo speaks up:

“You know, Iskall, maybe we should leave… This whole place looks rundown, who’s to say we’ll find a functioning landline?”

He sounds almost as nervous as Grian feels, but something in his tone is a bit forced. Mumbo’s always liked exploring dark and creepy places, has always been a fan of anything horror-themed, despite his sweet nature, but he probably notices how much this whole place is messing with Grian. If he weren’t so scared, Grian would kiss him, he really would, but as it stands, he just looks at the door, and then at his boyfriends, and then back at the door.

Iskall takes his hand off of the door knob, humming while he considers. Of course, at this point, Mumbo’s suggestion is just that, a suggestion, but Grian is fully aware that, were he to say that he doesn’t want to be here anymore, his boyfriends would take him out of the house and they’d all leave without a second glance at the old building, no questions asked.

Grian  _ knows _ , is fully aware of the fact that none of them would ever force the issue if any of them showed signs of distress, but if the landline _ does _ exist and is still working, Grian does kind of want to reach it and get the hell out of here.

“This place  _ does _ look a bit old, to be fair... ”, Iskall replies, one hand rubbing his bearded chin thoughtfully, “We could go back to the car and wait for the morning to flag down some other cars.”

The thought of going back to their car and spending the night there, still in the house’s proximity makes him blanche a little. Something about the thought that something could be watching them from inside the house, stupid though it may be,  _ terrifies _ Grian. It just feels wrong, for some reason, to leave right now.

He swallows his fear down and tries to think about what an intriguing tale this whole incident could be, imagines Scar, blank-faced, thanking Grian for the nightmares and the sleepless nights he’ll be having when he finishes ranting about it over the telephone. It helps a little.

Another inhales and:

“No, let’s continue. The worst thing we can find is a wild animal, I think, and there’s three of us, right?”, Grian chuckles nervously.

Iskall’s face softens a little and he smiles at Grian, caressing the side of his face. Grian leans into it and feels Mumbo draping an arm around his shoulders. At once, a little bit more confidence flows into him.

“That’s true. But...”, Iskall tilts his head to the side, eyes roaming around the empty hall, “If it feels like too much… All you have to do is say the word and we leave, yes?”

Mumbo lays a soft kiss on the crown of his head and, for just a second, Grian forgets where he is, feels his heart squeeze at his boyfriends’ affectionate gestures. He them both tightly.

“Oh, you two big saps, you”, he knows that his face is a little red as they detangle from their impromptu hugging session, but he feels better now. Reassured, as it were.

“How dare you, Grian”, Mumbo says, his tone entirely serious and it makes Iskall and Grian chuckle as they grab Mumbo’s hands.

Grian inhales, a big grin on his face and, before Mumbo or Iskall can stop him, he just swings the second door open, using all the confidence he’d gained in these last couple of minutes to face his fears. This is just an old house, truly, what is Grian so afraid of?

It is a choice that Grian comes to regret as soon as he takes the room in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I could have left the ending in that fluffy zone but ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯  
> Also, I've made something of a plan for this little fic, because plain old "people died here so there's a ghost ooooh spooky" horror doesn't satisfy me in the least, we need something _more_ :)


	4. Missing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He looks over at the cabinets and notes that there’s a slab of… Is that wood?
> 
> Grian approaches it and, upon closer inspection, he realises what it is. There’s five little slits at the top of the wood and there are the handles of four old, rusty knives sticking out.
> 
> Grian squints at it. It’s too dark without Iskall’s flashlight to see much of anything at all, so instead, he reaches out a hand and traces the edge of the wood, the dust sticking to his fingertips. 
> 
> Until it isn’t.
> 
> There’s a patch on the wood that seems to be clear of any settled dust, right next to the empty slit. Almost as if…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: There's blood in this one, guys

As it turns out, the second door leads to a kitchen just as old as the rest of the house. The walls, probably once white and clean, are stained black in places in a way that walls darken after years and years of exposure to smoke. The cabinets line one of the walls and a window that fits snugly on the wall opposite the row of cabinets would probably let in no more light than a solid wall, seeing as it is made out of the sort of glass that was made to keep the wind out, thick and misty, and with it being nailed shut, Grian notes with a sense of apprehension, it can’t be opened either.

He is about to step into the room when the light of Iskall’s flashlight shines on the floor.

“Oh my god!”, he jumps back, feeling his stomach lurch as his back hits Mumbo’s chest, making him jump again.

Grian raises his hands to his face as he stares at a large stain of dark red liquid splashed onto the floor haphazardly, a puddle of  _ blood _ .

Its colour is still a vibrant shade, denoting its freshness and Grian starts shaking now, nausea and panic swirling in his head to create a mix that leaves his knees weak and his breath laboured. Mumbo, still behind him, turns him away and hugs him to his chest, resting his chin on his head, whispering to him softly, but Grian is too in his head right now to even register that Mumbo is speaking to him, let alone make sense of any words he’s saying.

“We’re leaving”, Grian hears Iskall say and he raises his head from Mumbo’s black turtleneck, only to see Iskall patting through their backpacks, checking for something, Grian isn’t sure what, and his face is hard to read in the minimal light, a muscle twitching in his jaw. Iskall pulls both Grian and Mumbo away from the kitchen and exhales sharply. Grian almost stumbles while being dragged towards the front door by both Mumbo and Iskall, who eye the house warily. He’s thankful for it, really, because his body is failing him, heart still beating erratically and hands and feet going cold.

“M-maybe it  _ was _ an animal...?”, Mumbo whispers as they reach the front door. They stop there for a second and Grian nods to himself. Yes, that was probably it, though his mind had jumped to the worst conclusion right of the bat and assumed the blood had been… had belonged to…

“Maybe”, Iskall hums, looking at them and Grian knows that look, he’s looking them over to see if anything is amiss, though that much is probably obvious with how badly Grian’s started shaking right now, despite him trying to still his shuddering, but that makes him dizzy, even more so than before, “But I don’t… It doesn’t feel safe.”

“Better safe than sorry”, Mumbo agrees, voice barely audible, as he pushes at the front door.

A moment of silence passes. It doesn’t open.

It creaks as Mumbo frowns and pushes harder, hand twisting the doorknob frantically. Iskall has them take a step back and then, to Grian’s shock, puts his whole weight into kicking at the old wood. He kicks at it again and again, getting more and more worked up as he does, the furrow in his brows deepening. The door remains shut.

“Damn thing!”, Iskall adds a swear for good measure and slams his shoulder into the door. Mumbo steps up beside him as Grian looks at them, almost too afraid to look anywhere else. A shiver runs down his back and Grian shakes his head, trying to keep the rising panic from overwhelming him. In front of Grian, Mumbo and Iskall seem to have come to an agreement, nodding at each other before starting to count together.

“Three… Two… One!”, at the same time, the two of them kick the door with as much force as they can muster and, Grian doesn’t want to brag, but he knows that both his boyfriends are quite strong, so, logically, the door should have at least  _ budged _ by now, even if it were solid metal, but it’s just rotting wood, for goodness’ sake!

Nothing.

“This makes no sense!”, Mumbo throws his hands in the air and starts pacing. Grian just leans against a wall, eyeing the two closed doors that they’d just just gone through what must have been a few minutes ago, but feels like ages. Grian blinks. Once. Twice.

“Something’s jamming the door, but there was nothing when we got here”, Iskall says.

Didn’t they leave the bathroom and kitchen doors open…?

It’s a minor thing, really, the draft from the bathroom window could have shut the doors, it’s  _ explainable _ , but it’s like his brain short circuits in that moment, and all he can focus on is the fact that  _ they left those doors open _ .

And so, in a fit of stupidity, while Mumbo and Iskall are still trying to get the door to open, looking at the hinges, at the doorknob, at anything that could be keeping it from swinging open slowly like it first did when they came inside, Grian walks further down the hallway. He enters the kitchen first and winces when he sees the bloodstain again.

_ It’s an animal’s blood, this house is in the middle of wilderness _ , he reminds himself,  _ breathe, Grian _ .

He looks through the window, but no, it is just as blurry as before and just as unopenable. Though… Possibly, if the front door still refuses to open, they could break the kitchen window and fit through it. Grian files that thought for later and inhales. He looks over at the cabinets and notes that there’s a slab of… Is that wood?

Grian approaches it and, upon closer inspection, he realises what it is. There’s five little slits at the top of the wood and there are the handles of four old, rusty knives sticking out.

Grian squints at it. It’s too dark without Iskall’s flashlight to see much of anything at all, so instead, he reaches out a hand and traces the edge of the wood, the dust sticking to his fingertips. 

Until it isn’t.

There’s a patch on the wood that seems to be clear of any settled dust, right next to the empty slit. Almost as if…

Grian gasps and steps back, heart jumping into his throat as he almost slips on the blood.

“Mumbo! Iskall! I don’t think it was just an a-”, as Grian comes back into the hallway, he finds that he is alone. The front door is slowly creaking where it moves slightly, like it had been slammed open, something which Grian is sure he would have  _ heard _ , and there is no sign of his boyfriends. 

The world outside the house is just as dark as before, but the rain has stopped pouring. There is only the sound of the woods creeping through the entrance. 

“Guys…?”, his voice is almost too small to be heard, Grian knows that, logically,but he can’t bring himself to speak any louder. The packs that Iskall had been carrying are on the ground besides the door and Grian can’t move, can’t get his legs to work, frozen as he is in one spot, just staring at the empty hallway, his breath, rattling as it is through his lungs, making his chest hurt.

And then he hears it.

“Grian, up here!”, Mumbo’s voice carries from the second floor.

But the door is… And their backpacks...?

Grian swallows and closes his eyes, fingers digging into the sleeves of his sweater, the thick, soft material doing nothing to keep the cold from spreading through his limbs. They’re upstairs. Everything’s fine. He’ll go there and ask why they went up there if they managed to get the door to open and why they-

He’ll just go to them and everything will be fine. They’re all fine. Everything is fine.

Grian picks their backpacks up and heads up the staircase.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the plot thickens :>


	5. Illuminated

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You guys, why did you leave me down there? That wasn’t very bro...”, Grian says, trying to put a disappointed smile on his face, even using an old inside joke, but he is sure his voice sounds uncomfortable still and that his face is just a blank mask at best and a fearful frown at worst.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally have the outline fully done!  
> Am gonna have to change the main summary tho since it no longer quite lines up with my plan, sorry guys :'>

The stairs, as expected, groan and creak, despite Grian’s best attempts to keep his steps as light as possible, and, in the unnerving silence of the house, without the rain pelting down, without the wind, without Mumbo and Iskall, Grian still doesn’t feel alone, feels like there’s someone else with him.

Well, of course there is, he tells himself, hand reaching out to steady himself on the railing, old and rusted as it is, seemingly just a harder push away from bending and falling off of the side of the staircase, his boyfriends are just upstairs. Grian looks down at his own feet and adjust the straps of their packs on his back, stopping for a second to take a deep breath in and reach inside Iskall’s pack in search of the flashlight. A thought crosses his mind, that he should have done this earlier, that stopping and being distracted when he’s nearly reached the top of the stairs isn’t wise,  _ that someone could very easily push Grian down right now _ , but Grian just keeps rummaging through Iskall’s things, fingers finally wrapping around the flashlight.

He turns it on and even with only that slightly yellowish ray of light illuminating his way, Grian feels slightly better as he takes the hall of the second floor in all it disparaged glory in. It’s much like the hallway downstairs, barren of any furniture, the tapestry peeling off in long, curling stripes and the wooden floor, which is black with rot in some places that Grian makes a mental note of to avoid. Even the window at the edge of the corridor is planked up, leaving the space almost black outside of the reach of Grian’s flashlight, but, along the walls, there are a couple broken lamps, their glass bulbs cracked, though still whole, mostly, and their metal circuitry hanging out. Grian frowns a little. If the rest of the house’s electrical wiring is in the same sorry state as these wall lights, then, and Grian isn’t doing himself any favours by thinking like this, it seems a bit dubious that a any light could have come from one of the rooms up here. But it  _ could _ have come from someone with a flashlight.

Grian swallows, even if it seems like the knot in his throat is only choking him more with every second he spends in this damned place, and shines his light on the only door on this floor. A bedroom, most likely, Grian thinks as he makes his way towards it, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth.

This door is painted black and, for some reason, Grian sees it as some sort of sign that something isn’t right and that he should keep away. It’s not even entirely coated, there’s just stripes of black paint that do a lousy job of covering the door’s surface, but even that is ominous in it’s own right. And yet, Mumbo and Iskall must be in that room, because the hallway is empty and Grian looks behind his shoulder before opening the door, if only briefly.

“You guys, why did you leave me down there? That wasn’t very bro...”, Grian says, trying to put a disappointed smile on his face, even using an old inside joke, but he is sure his voice sounds uncomfortable still and that his face is just a blank mask at best and a fearful frown at worst. The room is small, only a double bed that barely fits inside tucked into the corner of the room and a wardrobe with its doors swung open opposite to it, its hinges probably broken, judging by the odd angle. The window is the same one that Grian had seen lit up from the outside when they first arrived and, just like the one in the kitchen below, it has nails keeping the frame anchored,  _ locked _ , but the glass in this one is much clearer. There’s a single light bulb dangling from the ceiling, but it currently seems just as useless as any of the other lights in the hallway.

The room is empty.

Grian sways where he stands, eyes bulging with a shocked terror as comprehension dawns him and tightens his hold on the flashlight so much so that his knuckles turn white. He’s alone, he’s all  _ alone _ and it makes all of his thoughts stop, it makes his the tightness in his chest loosen so suddenly and so completely that, just for a second, Grian feels like he is falling into a void, but he can’t move, can barely even  _ breathe _ .

And then he hears it, the sound of something breaking, the sound of its pieces falling to the floor and it cuts through the silence in such a way that the only thing it leaves behind is the sound of Grian’s heart attempting, and definitely showing promise with its endeavour, to burst right out of his chest.

“Iskall…? Mumbo…?”, he calls out and feels so very small all of a sudden. Grian hunches his shoulders and feels a chill spreading through him.

Grian turns his whole body towards the door, then, the flashlight is shining into the hallway.

Nothing. It’s just as empty as befo- 

Grian frowns and squints at the end of the corridor. There’s something next to the window, he thinks, but the flashlight doesn’t reach that far and Grian is most certainly  _ not _ moving any closer. But there  _ is _ something there, it’s just in the corner, slightly darker than its already nearly black surroundings and Grian wonders desperately if it was there before, tries to remember if he had seen something there earlier, but he’s not sure.

It takes a few minutes of staring at it in complete silence to realise that it’s  _ moving _ .

Grian raises a hand in front of him, positions it just so, making sure it’s next to the shape and notes how slowly, ever so slowly, compared to his hand, which Grian is keeping as still as possible, it seems to…It’s getting…

It’s coming closer.

“ _ Shit! _ ”, Grian bolts back inside the room, slamming the door behind him, wild eyes looking around the small room, flashlight swinging from his hand. He drops the packs and eyes the window. It’s a one story fall, Grian will  _ most likely _ make it out alive, and he sure as hell isn’t sticking around to see what that thing was!

And then, just as Grian readies himself to leap out of the nailed shut window, a small voice inside his treacherous brain decides to remind him, rather loudly, that he still hasn’t found his boyfriends. Guilt starts wrestling with the overwhelming fear Grian already feels. 

A helpless sob escapes Grian as he stumbles to his knees, the flashlight falling to the floor with a loud thud. With his tear blurred vision, he looks back at the door but even the thought of going back out there with that  _ thing _ turns his blood to ice, so instead, Grian tries, as best as he can, to reason with himself. There’s no more rooms downstairs where Mumbo and Iskall could be, and from the outside one could see that the second level of the house was made to be smaller than the ground floor, so probably, there’s no other room beside this one here either. Grian looks around him again, chin trembling. He looks at the old wardrobe, at the dirty bed, at the window, again, and then he eyes the ceiling, where the lone lightbulb still hangs, and he notices the outline of  _ something _ . Grian sniffles and, with the dim light of the fallen flashlight barely reaching it, he recognises it as a hatch. A realisation hits Grian.

The roof.

If this house has an attic, that’s where Mumbo and Iskall are. Where Grian hopes they are.

Grian wipes his eyes with the sleeve of his sweater and allows himself a moment before getting up and stepping closer to the hatch. It’s not low enough for him to reach, so Grian climbs onto the bad and stands on the old mattress, flinching a bit at how much decay there is on what must have once been a clean, white mattress, but is now covered in gray, more gray, a bit of brown and even more gray.

After trying to dig his blunt nails in between the frames of the hatch for a few minutes, seeing as there’s no handle, it swings down, dragging with it a small ladder and raining splinters accompanied by a cloud of dust.

Grian goes to get his flashlight and tries to gather his courage, then he is climbing the ladder and entering the attic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think the next two chapters (and last two!) are going to be quite interesting to write and I might attempt to binge-write them tomorrow, but we'll see. Hope ya enjoyed!


	6. Shards

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With a sigh that Grian manages to keep from turning into a sob, he squares his shoulders, shakes his head, ignoring the feeling of vertigo the motion gives him and sets about sweeping the attic with his eyes one more time. No matter what happens when he gets back to the second floor, Grian has to face it head on, because he will not remain in this dark attic and wait for whatever that was to come and find him, no, he will get the hell out of this house and when he is reunited with his boyfriends and his mind is clear, when, not if, he has to remind himself, then maybe he will find an explanation for everything that’s happened up until this point, but for that future to grow into a reality, Grian first has to go back to the bedroom, back to the hallway and, finally, leave this house and everything that’s happened here behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of fluff encased by angst in these trying times, my friends?

It’s a small, cramped space, wooden beams with cobwebs strewn all over them hanging overhead and barely allowing Grian enough room to stand upright. There’s crates and mounds of debris scattered all over the floor and Grian has to plan his steps, lest he get his foot stuck into the old wood and dirt. The dust makes breathing in the attic hard, so Grian pulls his collar over his mouth, which also serves as a way to keep warm, the chill being more accentuated here. Grian breathes deeply into his sweater, his flashlight revealing the attic bit by bit, but Grian isn’t paying attention to what he sees, rather, he’s intently listening for any sound that that seems even slightly out of place, any creak in the wood, any woosh of cloth, and it is hard to not jump to conclusions when his own footsteps have him shivering.

_ Where are they _ , he can’t help but think, coming to a halt in the middle of the attic, the slightest of breezes chilling him to the bone as he thinks about his boyfriends, as their faces appear before him and Grian takes a stuttering breath, shutting his eyes. The fear is now accompanied by an undertone of worry and no matter how much Grian thinks about it, he can’t come up with an explanation as to where Iskall and Mumbo had disappeared.They wouldn’t have left without him, would they?

_ Not without a  _ **_good_ ** _ reason _ , his mind supplies and Grian, all alone in this dark and dingy attic, running away from shadows, scared of his own reflection, jumping at the slightest of sounds, thinks he understands why they might have left without him. After all, the door was opened and with Mumbo and Iskall nowhere to be found, it is fair to assume that they  _ must _ have left. And Grian clutches the flashlight close to his chest, eyes fixed on a wooden beam. He wouldn’t have left, no matter how scared he is, because being alone scares him more.

Why did he have to go back to that stupid kitchen, anyway? Just because he had seen that the doors had moved, when, clearly, the house is quite lacking in all departments, insulation, one of them, and the wind could have very well turned into a draft and slowly pulled them shut? Grian keeps his eyes on the beam, staring, but not seeing much, just trying to keep the tears at bay. This is too much and he doesn’t know what to do next. He climbed up into the attic, but to get out he’ll have to go down again, won’t he? He’ll have to go back to the second floor, he’ll have to see that thing again, or, even worse, he  _ won’t see it at all _ , and then he’ll have to run away as quickly as possible, but Grian doesn’t knows if his body won’t just have shut down by then, if right now, his knees buckle and his chest seems like it is seizing up already, just thinking about it.

_ “Deep breaths, Grian”, Mumbo said, the hand he had on Grian’s back moving in slow circles just above where his heart would be, and Grian tries. His eyesight is broken up by black spots and his hands shake, still, he tries. Grian looked at him, the cold subsiding just the slightest bit when he noticed that Mumbo was smiling reassuringly, his eyes filled with the kindness and patience that Grian had come to love. _

_ They both looked up when the bedroom door opened to reveal Iskall trying to balance three steaming mugs in his hands, making his way to them slowly. _

_ “Since we’re staying up a while longer”, he whispered, voice a bit rough with sleep, but still mild and comforting, handing Grian his mug, the one that they’d gotten him for his birthday, the one with the “Grian Menace” imprinted on it next to a badly, but lovingly drawn caricature of his own face, and then giving one to Mumbo as well, who nodded thankfully, making place on the edge of the bed for Iskall to join them, keeping Grian between both of his boyfriends. Iskall placed his own cup on the bedside table and looked at Mumbo, exchanging a worried look. Grian sipped his hot chocolate softly, making a mental note to thank Iskall later for letting it cool down enough for him to drink it, because with how out of it he was at the moment, he would have had to deal with a burnt tongue, as well as an impending panic attack. _

_ “Sorry...”, Grian mumbled over the rim of his mug, his cold and clammy fingers clinging to its warmth, “I didn’t mean to wake you up, too.” _

_ Iskall tuted at that and laid a hand over Grian’s own, a small shudder making the hair on the back of Grian’s neck stand up at the contact. _

_ “Grian”, he said, warningly, and Grian knew, he  _ knew _ what Iskall was going to say, and yet- _

_ But Iskall just squeezed his fingers anyways, thumb caressing Grian’s knuckles. Mumbo reached back to grab the comforter that Grian, in the wake of his nightmare, had somehow kicked just off the bed and wrapped it around all three of them, his own hand joining Iskall’s and Grian’s on the mug. _

_ “You’ve nothing to apologise about, love”, Mumbo kissed his forehead and Grian closed his eyes, which by then were stinging both due to a lack of sleep and due to how emotional that simple gesture always managed to get him. _

_ “We’re here for you no matter what, you know that, right?”, and Iskall brushed a stray bit of hair behind Grian’s ear. _

_ It was then that Grian smiled, allowing his boyfriends to take the mug out of his hand and cuddling back into the little cocoon of warmth that the three of them made. Come morning, they’d all be tired and maybe a bit grumpy, but Grian knew that none of them would mind, especially not when they’d awake in a jumble of limbs, arms around one another and the bed barely able to hold all three of them. _

_ Grian wrapped Mumbo’s and Iskall’s hands into both of his own, keeping them over his chest and closed his eyes, his breathing evening out and the dark shroud of mist that had settled over his mind ever since he’d awoken from one of the worst nightmares he’d had in a while fading away with every moment he spent in his boyfriends’ embrace. _

Grian holds an arm above his eyes, looking up now, his flashlight pointing at the floor. If there are tears streaming down his face at the moment, all of his emotions laid bare in the oppressive darkness that surrounds him, then nobody needs to know.

With a sigh that Grian manages to keep from turning into a sob, he squares his shoulders, shakes his head, ignoring the feeling of vertigo the motion gives him and sets about sweeping the attic with his eyes one more time. No matter what happens when he gets back to the second floor, Grian has to face it head on, because he will not remain in this dark attic and wait for whatever that was to come and find  _ him _ , no, he will get the hell out of this house and when he is reunited with his boyfriends and his mind is clear,  _ when _ , not  _ if _ , he has to remind himself, then maybe he will find an explanation for everything that’s happened up until this point, but for that future to grow into a reality, Grian first has to go back to the bedroom, back to the hallway and, finally, leave this house and everything that’s happened here behind.

With that thought in mind and his flashlight revealing no new information about the room, Grian gets closer to the hatch.

He climbs down the ladder with quick movements, not allowing himself to stop, lest he lose his momentum and any sort of courage he might have conjured up in Mumbo’s and Iskall’s names, only slowing down to heft their backpacks up, then opening the door and stepping back into the hallway.

It’s truly a show of willpower, to keep the scream that seem to be crawling up Grian’s throat from getting out when he can not make out any suspicious shadow, but Grian doesn’t pay it any attention, tries not to, shuts everything other than walking forwards and, then, descending the staircase, out of his mind.

When Grian reaches the front door, it is closed, and, at this point, it doesn’t surprise Grian anymore, but he would be lying if he said that it doesn’t make his heart beat just that little bit louder. Regardless, with the sole goal of getting back to his boyfriends, Grian is just about to wrench it open, when, suddenly…

There’s a knock. Three little raps on the wood, quiet, but somewhat audible. It is almost familiar in the eeriest of ways and Grian  _ can’t seem to move _ . There’s voices on the other side, faint, and Grian can’t make up what they’re saying. Grian stares at the door with wide eyes.

“That doesn’t look safe”, Grian hears and his confusion almost beats his fear, because that is… It has to be, Grian would be able to recognise it anywhere, it’s…

It’s Mumbo’s voice.

It sounds far away and grainy, as if Grian were hearing it through a phone with horrendous reception, but Grian is glued to his spot in front of the door. It feels like an out of body experience when, after waiting for a few seconds, Grian pushes his palm flat against the door lightly, barely putting enough force behind the movement to have the door reveal a the smallest sliver of what is behind it. There’s no one Grian can see there, and yet…

And yet there’s creaks in the wooden floor right next to him that sound so much like three pairs of footsteps that Grian feels like falling to his knees and remaining there.

That is, until Grian hears a thumping sound, so soft and slow that Grian thinks he might have a better chance observing it better if he tried to feel it through the floor than to try and listen to it. Grian takes a step forwards, steps through the door and, before he can start running back to their car, before he even crosses the threshold, he is forcefully thrown back into the house, grabbed by the backpacks that he is keeping strapped to his shoulders and hurled into the kitchen door, which swings open upon impact, only further allowing Grian to get closely acquainted with the dirty floor. Dirty, but  _ bloodless _ . 

Grian gasps, but his voice stops working as pain pulses up his arm. There’s no longer the sliver of light that his flashlight had provided him throughout this whole thing, because his flashlight had shattered at the fall and is currently embedded into his palm and forearm, the shards sticking out in all sorts of angles that make Grian wince and that make his breath hitch.

It is in this moment that Grian’s fear of the unknown turns into fear for his very life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be honest, I think this is my favourite chapter because, _oh yeah, it's all coming together._  
>  >:3


	7. Deception

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grian shrieks, his arm turning into a flaming mess of nerves, overworked by the pain. It pushes Grian into the floor with a weight that makes him fear for his ribs, which begin pressing uncomfortably against his lungs and Grian, for all his panic, doesn’t remain still. No, he begins wiggling as soon as his back meets the hard surface and, though there are tears streaming down his face and his voice is getting raspy from how much he is screaming at the thing and at the agony, Grian pushes back against it with as much force as he can muster, clenching his teeth and feeling his muscles shake with the strain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be completely honest, I could have made the ending much better, but also much worse, so middle-ground it is!

The only sound is Grian’s own heavy breathing and his pained groans. He tries, he really tries his damned hardest to keep himself quiet, but some of the shards in his palm are embedded just so that they set his nerves aflame.Blood lazily trickles down Grian’s arm and he is hesitant to touch any of the shards in case he accidentally pushes them deeper, but… What _was_ that?

Grian gets up on shaky legs, backpacks abandoned on the kitchen floor, and he is barely able to get a cursory glance around the room, which, in the darkness, with no flashlight and barely any time for his eyes to adjust to the abyss swallowing him hole, doesn’t yield anything useful. He feels like he is waiting for something to happen, feeling the blood pool at his feet, and Grian wants to move, but it’s like his own body won’t listen to him.

_Grian raises his hands to his face as he stares at a large stain of dark red liquid splashed onto the floor haphazardly, a puddle of blood._

The kitchen door slams shut all of a sudden and Grian squeaks, ripped right out of his thoughts. The thumping from before, it’s.... Louder. It’s rhythm has changed, too. It is a terrifying moment of realisation when it hits Grian that it sounds like footsteps, approaching him and getting quicker. Grian looks around the kitchen, his overwhelming panic making the room, already dark and confusing as it is, spin around him. He racks his brain for any last minute idea, anything that might help, anything that might keep him safe.

“The window...”, he whispers, turning towards it and, just before he can smash his elbow into the glass panel, it grabs him by his injured forearm and pins him to the floor.

Grian shrieks, his arm turning into a flaming mess of nerves, overworked by the pain. It pushes Grian into the floor with a weight that makes him fear for his ribs, which begin pressing uncomfortably against his lungs and Grian, for all his panic, doesn’t remain still. No, he begins wiggling as soon as his back meets the hard surface and, though there are tears streaming down his face and his voice is getting raspy from how much he is screaming at the _thing_ and at the agony, Grian pushes back against it with as much force as he can muster, clenching his teeth and feeling his muscles shake with the strain.

It loosens his hold just a fraction when Grian falls limp, all sweat, blood and tears dripping down onto the floor around him, but that’s all Grian’s adrenaline addled brain needs to order his body into giving one last shove against the thing. He must have taken it by surprise, because it doesn’t react fast enough when Grian slips from its grasps, but, with his eyes somewhat adjusted to his darkened surroundings, he catches a glimpse of the same shadowy figure from the second floor, barely resembling anything other than just a vaguely humanoid silhouette. Grian doesn’t wait for it to catch up to him, though, instead, he runs straight at the window, not caring about getting more glass shards embedded into his skin, but his instincts have him covering his face with his already bloodied forearms, anyways.

He thinks he hears it growl behind him, a sound so deep and so _inhuman_ that it rips a sob from Grian’s chest as his body makes contact with the glass, but the world is lost to him the moment his body lands on the grass outside, still damp from the rain, temperature freezing after the downpour.

With the adrenaline still pumping through his veins, Grian manages to set his pain on the backburner and he bolts, breath wheezing out of his lungs as he tries to put as much distance between himself and that hellish place as he possibly can. He thinks he might still be crying, but he can’t tell whether his eyes are stinging from the cold or from everything else that has happened. All Grian thinks about right now is getting back to his boyfriends, climbing into their car and driving away as quickly as possible.

But the wildlife around him doesn’t seem to give way to a clearing or a road, no, the trees seem to become thicker and taller the further Grian runs and the grass goes from ankle high to knee high, small branches and bushes leaving gashes on Grian’s trousers.

And still, he doesn’t turn back, no, he _can’t_.

The last thing Grian remembers is his foot getting entangled into a tree root as he runs away and then, _then_ he is tumbling down, falling onto the forest floor and hitting his head against something hard.

* * *

When he comes to, Grian awakes with a startled whimper, throat closing up and eyes wet with unshed tears. For a second, he thinks he is back in the house, for it is dark around him, dark and quiet, but the chill in the air that Grian had felt when he had gotten outside is missing, and he is ready to give up when, before the despair can truly settle in, he makes out a couple of small, neon lights in front of him. His vision starts adjusting, slowly.

“Huh…?”, Grian isn’t sure what is going on, his skull feeling fuzzy, as if it were stuffed with cotton, but then…

“Grian?”

It’s their car’s board lights, he realises.

Iskall and Mumbo are in the front seats and he is laying down onto the back seats, an old, ratty blanket placed on his lap and legs. He is so confused that, for a second, he thinks this might be another flashback, but Grian dismisses that thought, because this feels _real_ , this feels _present_ , and just looks at his boyfriends with wide eyes.

“Why did-”, he chokes on a sob before he can finish his sentence, but Grian continues, doing his best to keep his wobbling voice in check and failing miserably, “Why did you guys l-leave me there…?”

He sounds small and terrified, and yet, there’s a certain calm that pierces all of the anxiety still coursing through him, and Grian grabs the blanket, pulling it up to his chin, despite its scratchiness.

“Leave you?”, Mumbo asks, brows furrowing. Iskall risks a glance back at the two of them, but his face doesn’t show anything other than confusion either. Grian frowns.

“At the house, where we… When the car broke down, we-”, but Grian abandons the thought when he notices his boyfriends’ worried faces. Worried, but confused too.

“Grian, did you maybe have a nightmare?”, Mumbo asks and Iskall keeps his eyes on the road this time, but nods.

“I...”, and he doesn’t _know_ . It had felt so real, and even now, when he thinks back on the exploration of the house, on the shadowy thing that had tried to hurt him, on all of the small details that sleep would usually not allow Grian to have once he joined the land of the waking again, _even now_ , it doesn’t feel like a dream, it feels like a _memory_.

And yet Grian takes a shaky breath, slowly allowing the possibility of it all having been just something his mind had made up while he slept to slowly form and take root in his brain.

“We turned back because it was raining, but we didn’t have any car problems. We’re actually almost...”, Iskall says, the car slowing to a halt and this is the first time Grian looks through the windows since waking up. The familiar houses of their neighbourhood, grey and blurry, take form before Grian’s very eyes and he laughs a little laugh of disbelief and immense joy.

“We’re home”, Mumbo finishes and the two of them smile at Grian before they get out of the car to get their packs. Grian tries to smile. This is the moment when he should feel the happiness that comes with waking from a nightmare, with the hopelessness of a bad dream where one is powerless to do anything but run away from whatever is chasing them fading away, the moment when he should feel the delight of being home, and he _tries_.

But his palm stings and when Grian opens his fist, which he hadn’t even realised he was holding tightly shut, he sees a tiny glass shard, cutting a small gash into the sensitive skin of his palm. Grian’s lips curl into a forced smile and his eyes sting as he thinks he spots a shadow alongside Iskall and Mumbo in the rearview mirror, just on the other side of the street.

And, if later that night, when he puts the clothes from the hamper into the washing machine, he notices that the outfit he wore today has a couple of tears into the fabric and some branches and leaves clinging to the tears, he says nothing and just cuddles closer to his boyfriends when he ends up going to sleep, even if he knows that he won’t be able to get a wink of sleep tonight.

Grian doesn’t need to worry Mumbo and Iskall with his overactive imagination, doesn’t want to give them any reason to _leave_.

He can keep a secret.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the last note of this work I want to talk about some of my inspirations for this fic:  
> 1\. Grave Encounters (first one, the second one was bleh), for its marvelous use the building itself as a paranormal force that toys with time, with space, even with the minds of the people who come inside and for its interesting escalation techniques.  
> 2\. NoEndHouse, for establishing an ending where, once you've entered the nightmare, there's only the illusion of escape, instead of just killing the protagonists or letting them go scottfree.  
> 3\. AO3 Author hellstrider, for their beautiful way with words which helped me develop my own style further and inspired me to be a bit looser with my own writing. If you want to check them out, their most recent works are in the Witcher fandom!  
> And I want to thank every single one of you who has read this work, who has left kudos or who has written a comment. You have all shown me so much support and I can't find the words to thank you all enough, but I am so grateful!  
> Until the next one, cheers :>

**Author's Note:**

> Updates won't be too regular, but this isn't a long story so... It'll be maybe be about five chapters long?


End file.
